BBC

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Overview

We helped Nice & Polite provide the BBC with a one-of-a-kind illustrated character animation. It was produced in a sketchy, hand-drawn style with parallax movement - It just worked!

Story

Presented as part of a series of videos at the BBC Manager Roadshow, this bespoke illustrated character animation was created in collaboration with creative content agency Nice & Polite. It was designed to illustrate changes in HR, offer support to around 2,000 BBC managers, and as a result, allow them to do their work more effectively.

With the deadline looming Nice & Polite didn’t want to just settle for an average run-of-the-mill animation. They spoke to their colleague (talented director and filmmaker) Michael Holyk, and he didn’t hesitate to recommend us for the project.

We’ve worked together on a bunch of projects for over a decade with Michael, and he told Matt that “Scott’s really creative, and always delivers on time.” So we arranged a conference call that same evening and the project was underway the very next morning.

“Scott was eager to get cracking and by the following morning we had received his storyboards and character sketches. We told him we liked the initial designs, but had imagined a ‘looser’ style. Not long after, we received new illustrations of the characters and a BBC office scene in exactly the style we were looking for. Perfect!”

Great management at the BBC

Great management at the BBC

The staff are overwhelmed

The staff are overwhelmed

One HR system

One HR system

Process refinement

Process refinement

BBC Birmingham – Illustrated Character Animation

BBC Birmingham – Illustrated Character Animation

Illustrated Character Animation

Illustrated Character Animation

Skills

Storyboards

Everything in this illustrated character animation had to be thoroughly thought out before starting any illustration work.

Animation

Character movements were animated using a mixture of manual keyframing and the Puppet Tool in After Effects.

Illustration

Each character’s body part and all of the scene elements were hand drawn on paper using pencil in a ‘sketchy’ style.

Scenery

The layered scenery moved horizontally in a parallax fashion to create dynamic transitions between scenes.

Editing

The sketches were scanned at high resolution, carefully cut out, and then layered in Photoshop ready for animation.

VFX

Trapcode 3D Stroke was used to generate organic stroke styles for things like the tears (0:44) and handwriting (1:36).

More

Digital At Our Heart

An infographic style animated explained video that demonstrates ways in which the management structure at BBC Online is changing.

Bringing Audiences The Future Since 1922

Defining the BBC's vision for the future in an infographic explainer video featuring the voice of Matthew Prostgate - Chief Technology Officer at the BBC.

Five Years Of Digital Innovation

A company highlights video that showcases all of the BBC's accomplishments throughout the year of 2015. Made of supplied company footage and imagery, with animated title sequences and descriptive text added. We've actually done many of these over the years so if you want to see more, just let us know.

POD in 2013

This was our take on using kinetic typography combined with imagery and footage to create a more interesting company highlights video for the BBC in 2013.

Review

The project began to take shape very quickly. Scott was always available to speak to on the phone and quick to respond to our emails. The final product was delivered on time and was exactly what we were looking for, and more. We’re happy we found him and will undoubtedly be using Motion Videos UK again in the future for more exciting projects. Thank you so much for your professionalism and creativity.

— Matt Frost

Shall we get started?

Have you seen enough? Are you ready for us to help bring your story to life? To help it reach more people than words ever could? And make an exciting visual experience that's easy to understand and difficult to forget?